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View Full Version : Thoughts regarding non-combat skills



Aux-Ash
2011-04-10, 10:19 AM
In most roleplaying games that I have played non-combat skills usually consist of little more than a single skill check. Rolling once against a situational difficulty with eventual modifiers added to them. Combat on the other hand is usually a lot more involved, as is expected. It is after all usually very complex interactions and movements involved.

Recently however, I've been thinking if one couldn't make non-combat skills a little more involving by making the system of resolving non-combat challanges a little more like how combat is resolved. That is to say including more than a single step and adding some ability to choose which method to solve the challange with.

The idea is not for any specific system but rather a general idea for resolving non-combat systems.

Let's call each challange a "Task" for clarity's sake. A task could be something like climbing a wall, swimming, convincing another person of something, jumping a chasm, searching a room or similar.

Each task, with a few special exceptions, consist of at least two skill check. With a maximum of five or something. If I want to swim across a narrow and calm river, that could be two swim checks. If I succeed "perfectly" on both I swim over very quickly, if I succeed normally I'll cross it in the time I expected. If I fail one it takes longer than expected and if I fail both it takes much longer than expected.
I could however, as a player choose to try to jump across and swim the distance I miss with. Replacing the first swim check with a jump check instead.

If the river is wider and/or there is a strong current on the other hand. The same task would consist of more skill checks. I can still replace the first one with jump and if a friend tosses out a rope to me I could use climb as my last one. But the more checks I'd fail the further away from my intended destination the current will take me and the longer time it takes.

This idea would also make collaboration possible. If me and my friend for instance set out to search a room that would be one task in which we both could roll. If it is 3 checks, then the first person in the room would get two checks to roll and the second one check to roll.

Social interactions would benefit the most from this I think.
If I need to convince a guard to betray his master then that might be a 4-check task. As the player attempting this I could then tailor the conversation in an attempt to be the most effective. I could begin with warming him up diplomatically twice, then make a subtle threat and finish up with the offer of a bribe. If one of my party-members is a big, thuggish and scary character I could let him do the threatening in a much less subtle manner.

If I succeed in all my rolls he'll do it, if I succeed three rolls I have to increase the bribe/ensure his protection, half my rolls then he won't do it but wishes me luck, just a single roll then he'd refuse but probably not report me and if no rolls then I can expect a heightened security.

If I am no good at small talk though, I could change those checks for something else. Like opting for nothing but threats and bribes.

What do you think of this idea? Does it have merit? Is there something I've failed to consider?

dsmiles
2011-04-10, 10:21 AM
That's how it's done in DnD 4e, pretty much.

bloodtide
2011-04-10, 01:48 PM
This is a fine idea. I've always used this idea in my games, way, way before 4E ever did.


I've never liked the idea of one skill check to do things, except the simple things. But players are adventurers, and they are/should be doing wild and crazy things.

For example: The character wants to jump off a cliff, grab a hanging rope, and then swing around to a cave entrance. A lot of DM would just do a single Jump check.....

1.A Balance check to 'hang' over cliff edge by their heels to reduce the jump ranger by five feet, or give a +2 bonus to the jump
2.The Jump Check, of course
3.A Grapple check to grab the rope
4.A Balance check to swing around with a +4 to the roll
5.A Rope Use check to swing on the rope
6.A 'Hit' roll to land on the spot where the cave is
7.With a Balance/Climb/Tumble depending on how they want to land.

Ravens_cry
2011-04-10, 06:43 PM
I do not think it would work so well with a d20's low granularity and flat bell curve. The longer the chain, the more likely your just going to roll suck and fail unless you are optimized in ALL those skills. Sure, I can imagine a rogue doing it, or other skill monkey charachter, but a fighter or cleric would have to roll 20's just to succeed at one of those rolls.

Ytaker
2011-04-10, 06:58 PM
1.A Balance check to 'hang' over cliff edge by their heels to reduce the jump ranger by five feet, or give a +2 bonus to the jump
2.The Jump Check, of course
3.A Grapple check to grab the rope
4.A Balance check to swing around with a +4 to the roll
5.A Rope Use check to swing on the rope
6.A 'Hit' roll to land on the spot where the cave is
7.With a Balance/Climb/Tumble depending on how they want to land.

11,6,2,13,17,5,1

Ok so I fail to grab the rope and I can't land. If you need a decent hit roll, I'll miss that

This just encourages people not to jump. With more rolls comes more chance of failure. Every extra link in the chain weakens you.

Kylarra
2011-04-10, 07:24 PM
Yeah, risk:reward ratio needs to make it worthwhile. If you have 6 links in the chain, a failure at any of which ends your cool trick and puts you in a bad position, then you're highly unlikely to try your cool trick that offers minimal advantage.

AslanCross
2011-04-10, 07:30 PM
Degrees of success will help lessen the mentality of "Oh noez, I'm going to have so many checks to move a few feet up this wall, better not." I think that's the recommendation that 4E makes as well: Don't get people stuck just because they can't make that skill check---let that failed skill check lead them onto an exciting alternative (though possibly dangerous) route.

Kylarra
2011-04-10, 07:36 PM
Degrees of success will help lessen the mentality of "Oh noez, I'm going to have so many checks to move a few feet up this wall, better not." I think that's the recommendation that 4E makes as well: Don't get people stuck just because they can't make that skill check---let that failed skill check lead them onto an exciting alternative (though possibly dangerous) route.I am pretty fond of the basic X successes before Y failures method, and lesser failures by the time X is achieved will be better than simply hitting X at Y-1. The key part is to work it into the story somehow so it's not just "Oh I try skill X, okay now Y, and then Z."

bloodtide
2011-04-11, 12:10 AM
11,6,2,13,17,5,1

Ok so I fail to grab the rope and I can't land. If you need a decent hit roll, I'll miss that

This just encourages people not to jump. With more rolls comes more chance of failure. Every extra link in the chain weakens you.

I was just giving a quick example.

In a game you don't do the 'you need to make 10 rolls to do this one actions, and if you fail even one then the whole action fails'. Mostly, making a roll will just give you a bonus to the action, but not be a make it/fail type roll. For example, if you make a balance check you can reduce the jump distance by a couple feet(like in my example). Or balance can let you swing better, giving you a +2 to use rope..but if you fail you don't get a -2 or anything.

And often failure can be fun. This is missing from a lot of games where 'everyone must win'. But think of a good movie, it's fun and funny when the hero 'fails'. So the character misses the rope and falls into the snake pit..well then you get to have a little snake encounter. It's not like ''oh you miss the rope and fall into the Black Hole and die".


Naturally this type of thing is only attempted by characters with lots of skill points. That is kind of the point. Every single character should not be able to pull off the most amazing trick/stunt/skill feat, especially not with every single skill. Yes the average cleric or wizard is not gonna be able to jump up and grab a rope and swing around into a cave. But that is normal and expected.

And after all, spellcasters get similar things when doing magic skills, with knowledge arcana, spellcraft, use magic device, ect. And spellcasters do have the option of, well, using spells. So they can skip by the skills they don't have(For example a sorcerer could just use mage hand to grab the rope and bring it to him and not need to jump.)

NMBLNG
2011-04-11, 01:08 AM
In D&D, a non-combat encounter usually involves using skills (d20 rolls) to overcome various obstacles. Combat involves attacking monsters to kill them (d20 and damage/effect rolls). What if skills were given something similar?

NichG
2011-04-11, 02:07 AM
As long as non-combat interactions of the world are thought of in terms of a pass/fail resolution system, you're going to have this problem no matter how many rolls you involve.

There are two things going on here.

One is that that pass-fail resolution creates a bottleneck in the branching process, so that once you've passed that bottleneck, how you dealt with the situation has no further bearing on what happens, and so the complexity of that aspect of the game is very limited.

In combat, there are consequences of how the combat was resolved that continue beyond the end of the battle: how much damage the various party members are left with (or even PC death), conditions that persist (disease, ability damage or drain), resource expenditure (spell slots, consumables), and in a more abstract sense strategic expenditure (did you stop the guards from sounding the alert? did you reveal your big trick to the BBEG, who will now be prepared for you?) Also, there is the possibility for a concluding outcome that is not absolute for either side (enemies can run, the party can run, there can be more complex objectives than 'everyone over there is dead').

The other aspect is that for there to be interesting strategy in a situation, the players have to have an internal model of how the world works, and a series of tools to interact with that internal model in vaguely but not entirely predictable ways. Otherwise, its basically a 'you must be this tall to pass this obstacle' sort of thing.

Here is where giving players choice as to how to resolve an out of combat situation starts to shine (do you climb the cliff, or do you expend a spell and just fly up, or do you instead attempt to make a vine ladder with Use Rope, or...?). There's actually a lot of this already built into D&D for spellcasters (the Magical Macgyver type of game is built on this idea), but skills are rather lacking because they're really designed as pass-fail checks rather than as enabling tools that a character has in their arsenal.

I'd say a lot of this doesn't necessarily need heavy mechanics if the players and DM are on the same page, but it is important that if you have simple mechanics they don't get in the way of ingenuity. A system that says 'describe what you do, and then flip a coin: heads succeeds' will not be interesting strategically because no matter what you come up with, you can't gain or lose anything by being clever. The system has to reward clever ideas, and probably should do so very strongly (as opposed to 'that was clever, here's a +2 on a d20 roll') to make strategy important.